We're All Software People Now

April 11, 2014

Here's a great clip by one of my favorite visionaries, Jeff Lawson, founder of Twilio, a message distribution service that we've integrated into various products at TempWorks, in which he preaches a bit to the choir of software developers before him that "we are all software people now."

LinkedIn: a recruiting business that thinks of itself first as a software business

He intimates as well that all businesses are software businesses and that those who think to the contrary -- that they are in the book business or the heating business or the car business -- better take a harder look before they are disrupted out of existence.

How about recruiters? Would he say that recruiters are also in the software business? He doesn't mention so specifically although my guess is that he would say yes and pull out LinkedIn as the prime example of a recruiting business that thinks of itself first as a software business.

How about the Adeccos, the Manpowers and the Robert Halfs of the world? Should they be thinking of themselves as software businesses?

I'm curious if that lack of vision was in part behind his recent, rumored ouster.

They don't as far as I can tell. A couple of years back at a staffing show, Jeff Joerres, then-CEO of Manpower, made a convincing case that he and Manpower were all about "helping customers win". However, when it came time to talk about technology it became clear that he saw IT as a support function and not a business driver. I'm curious if that lack of vision was partly behind his recent, rumored ouster.

Sometimes I'll hear from a client or a prospect that they're looking at software vendors because "We don't want to be in the software business." I'm quick to respond that while I appreciate their interest and faith in us that they are in fact already in the software business and that their ability to compete over the long term depends on them driving innovation.

If you watch Jeff Lawson's video all the way through, you'll see why and how APIs (application programming interfaces) play into this.

For recruiting companies, those APIs increasingly form a web of services that, taken in totality, make them a software company. I'm talking APIs to harvest and survey candidates, APIs to automate onboarding and offboarding, APIs to process payroll and billing, APIs to connect to services like eVerify, background checking, time clocks, and more.